I had half filled the huge lugged home plastic pool with some pond
water and some tap with declor. I put the plants in there. The first
(tamed) fish, swam into the bucket, the second (young one i decided to
keep for some insane reason) was easy to catch. But the large
female....i would like to find a better way to do this next year. When
i finally got her, she was in pure bottom crud and little water but
she stayed flat and i couldn't find her. Then she got away time and
time again. I finally got her in the pool. I emptied the pond and
pulled out a 2 ft. ball of roots, mud, and lots of bricks for the
toads. (I still need to figure out a way to make the pond more toad
friendly around the edges early in spring) I noted that there wasn't a
hint of the huge creeping jenny plant i had in there, hardly any of
the parrot feather left, and taro was magically growing in 4 other
places besides the original monster in a pot. There was only a hint of
water celery, but it doesn't like my pond anyway. Almost all of the
ton of anacharis was gone! And the only tiny bummer was that there
wasn't a snail to be found. I wanted to bring a few in for the winter.
I used a wet/dry vac and got the shelves and bottom. I then tied a
bundle of creeping primrose to a brick on one side, a bundle of parrot
feather on the other side to a brick, and what was left of the
anacharis, i bunched up and sunk, tied to a brick. When it gets cold i
will sink the 2 WH i am keeping. That leaves 4-5 to trash. I sat the
lily back down on the bottom and fill, adding declor. I didn't take
the temp, but it felt the same. I got the two fish that were first
caught into the clean pond quickly. But that dang female, i about
killed her trying to get her back in there. She flips and jumps and
wriggles, and squirms and is good at all those things! I was about to
drain the pool when i finally got her.

I need azolla, as asked in a separate thread, creeping jenny, and some
regular little black snails.